The current issue of The Knee has a new cover, which symbolizes wider change on the journal. This change has been evolutionary.With each change has come improvement. Improvement has been achieved by access to the full text articles for all volumes of The Knee through Science Direct. This has been followed by the introduction of Medline indexing instigated by John Newman our predecessor as Editor. For nearly two years we have had electronic submission through EES. This has made the editorial process easier, to the benefit of authors, reviewers and us, the Editors. Further upgrades are being introduced all the time, in the light of comments and criticisms from users.
How has improvement been measured? There are a number of ways of demonstrating this. In 2005 there were 446 editorial pages published. In 2006 it was 552, a 10% increase. In 2005 there were 232 submissions with a rejection rate of 85%. In 2006 to mid November there have already been 279 submissions. With online availability there are now several thousand electronic licences for The Knee of which 48% are in Europe, 27% in Asia and 22% in North America. The distribution of authors is 62% Europe, 11% Asia, 11% North America and 8% Australasia. Full text downloads from Science Direct were 48 000 in 2004, 61 000 in 2005 and around 74 000 in 2006. The geographical distribution of this usage is Europe 35%, North America 25%, Asia 20% and Australasia 6%.
The current impact factor is 0.735 (in 2005) with 114 citations from 155 recent articles. The journal was ranked 26th out of 41 orthopaedic journals and 96th out of 139 surgery journals.
The Knee will review any paper on the subject of the knee. However, the editorial policy is to accept papers of high interest and scientific quality. The most popular downloads are reviews. These tend to be commissioned by the Editors. It is worth checking with the Editors if a non-commissioned review is worth submitting. Recently there has been an increase in the submission of systematic reviews. These have been published under the review heading [1]. Usually these are sent without alteration as written for a higher degree. Authors need to consider the readership. Although many may be well conducted, the subject needs to be interesting, topical, or educational to be accepted.
Original articles with sound methodology are the bedrock of any medical journal. Authors need to note the Instructions to Authors, ethical permission, and comment on the biases in their work. If a randomised controlled trial, then the work must conform to the CONSORT agreement [2]. It is well recognised that perfect science is impossible in clinical studies. It is important for the readers to understand the details of the strengths and weaknesses of any work. Authors should include these in the discussion.
Short communications can take a number of forms, but usually as case reports. These are rarely cited and are not therefore good for a journalTs impact factor. These need to be novel, interesting, educational, and well illustrated to be acceptable. Many are rejected before peer review.
It is editorial policy that questionnaire surveys will only be accepted if properly constructed and with adequate return rates. Surveys of BASK members will only be accepted if first agreed by the BASK executive. These will be published as a single page summary in the BASK section at the end of the journal.
Authors should note that copyediting is their responsibility. This includes checking for typographical errors. The commonest mistakes occur in the references. The EES has been upgraded such that the Editors can e-mail authors. Papers that have not been produced as requested may be withdrawn before peer review to be resubmitted.
We should like to emphasise that we feel that all articles should reflect the views of the authors provided that they are supported by the evidence. From time-to time we receive postpublication letters from readers. We do not currently run a column on Letters to the Editors, although we do publish if there is an important matter to cover. Readers can contact authors direct if there are matters of clarification that they require.
As Editors we are extremely grateful to our reviewers. Peer review is done without financial compensation. It is an important part of continuing medical education, but with the increase in submissions, this has put more pressure on reviewers. If you wish to review for The Knee, please contact either editorial office.
Finally, as part of the process of change, and as mentioned initially, we have changed the cover of the journal.
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